I do not see the issue with Kingmaking. Politicking is part of the format.
Politics can mean doing favors or helping someone else, but always with the intention of improving your own chances to win in the long game. Politicians don't help their opponents win.
Helping someone else with no expectation that it will benefit you undermines the foundation of the game.
Meanwhile in the 2016 US Presidential Election...
*rimshot*
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Level 1 Judge
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
It's a starting point, but one big problem with Commander and Standard is that you're really limited by color identity: While gold sets will have cycles of legends, two-color in both Ravnica blocks, arcs in Alara, wedges (and allied colors) in Tarkir, when multicolor is rare, like say, ZEN/SOM, it means locking you into one color: You would have Wrexial, the Risen Deep, Sarkhan the Mad, Venser, the Sojourner, Glissa, the Traitor, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, and Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer, and no other multicolor options. (Though, to be fair, the only cards with more than one color of mana symbol on them were dual lands, which isn't that much of an issue. Except Raging Ravine and Stirring Wildwood...well, Raging Ravine. Stirring Wildwood isn't that exciting.) And of course, colorless commanders would require always having Wastes available.
Most "Commander for beginners" variants usually merge with Modern or Frontier to avoid the issue.
Reducing the life total to 30 does take care of the "Boros problem", though.
I'd expect that, if this format takes off, they'll make sure to cater to it by printing multicolor legends frequently (which is already pretty frequent tbh).
I think boros will look a lot better in general when it doesn't have to compete against the years and years of busted BUG cards. Aggro will still be tough, but that's kind of the point of a social multiplayer format like this. Aggro is just not very fun to play against.
True enough. I guess I was just worried about that when you consider you have a smaller card pool as well, inherent in Standard. (That said, I also think it's funny watching Commander players play four- or five-color decks with a bunch of cards costing MMM, which is fine, as long as you remember paying that colored cost effects its position on the curve. I do think Brawl will stop some of that, especially since Necropotence is not available.)
Boros's biggest problem is the dearth of good card draw, which is a problem throughout multiplayer formats, as well as formats with higher life totals. (If a midrange or control player can stabilize or a combo player can combo out, the aggro player is boned.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I am approaching this from the standpoint of a primarily EDH player, so bear with me if I do not meet the target audience (which either seems to be people like me or newer players who do not want to buy play sets). The pros have been detailed in the article and, aside from the usual "standard cards are easy to find" argument, they are present in EDH as is. I have a few other thoughts, but the TLDR is that I cannot see myself becoming too invested in brawl unless it becomes a local favorite or something.
One of the great things about EDH is the sheer varitey of things to build, from control to timmy ramp to midrange to storm to stax. Outside of control and midrange, I am not sure what variety of decks the standard cardpool can facilitate.
As someone entrenched in EDH, the transition would feel awkward, as this format seems more or less like a "dumbed down" version. It's EDH but with no good mana rocks, removal, counterspells, combos etc. Only creatures here.
The issue of entire color combinations potentially rotating out of a format is irksome.
I do think the collateral of more EDH like cards and more people interested in EDH is positive.
More ways to play Magic is always good.
I think the best thing to come out of this would be if it provided an Arena friendly "EDH lite" so that casual, multiplayer Magic would be possible on Arena.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Avatar by Disappointing Signet Inc
EDH Decks UWB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic's spring of life RUG Animar, Soul of the Elements and friends... lots of them WBG Karador king of two worlds (value and attrition) WRKalemne's Angels BRUG Yidris's Wild Party UWBR Breya's Terrifying Tinker Toys UBRThe Pretender
They really should have made it a competitive format.
You can't create a casual format, people find the way they want to play and share it with their friends, you don't show up and tell them "have fun this way". Planechase failed, Archenemy failed, Explorers failed. Sure some people actually like those, but they'll never have the appeal Commander does.
On the other hand all you need to popularize a competitive format out of nowhere is hold tournaments for it. Pauper went from 7 guys and a staff member as a bye to 150 people events in two months. If they wanted to sell Standard cards through Brawl, that's what they had to have done.
I am approaching this from the standpoint of a primarily EDH player, so bear with me if I do not meet the target audience (which either seems to be people like me or newer players who do not want to buy play sets). The pros have been detailed in the article and, aside from the usual "standard cards are easy to find" argument, they are present in EDH as is. I have a few other thoughts, but the TLDR is that I cannot see myself becoming too invested in brawl unless it becomes a local favorite or something.
One of the great things about EDH is the sheer varitey of things to build, from control to timmy ramp to midrange to storm to stax. Outside of control and midrange, I am not sure what variety of decks the standard cardpool can facilitate.
As someone entrenched in EDH, the transition would feel awkward, as this format seems more or less like a "dumbed down" version. It's EDH but with no good mana rocks, removal, counterspells, combos etc. Only creatures here.
The issue of entire color combinations potentially rotating out of a format is irksome.
I do think the collateral of more EDH like cards and more people interested in EDH is positive.
More ways to play Magic is always good.
I think the best thing to come out of this would be if it provided an Arena friendly "EDH lite" so that casual, multiplayer Magic would be possible on Arena.
I think the concern over archetype limitations is a reasonable one. That said, many people don't really enjoy playing against stax, and storm is interesting once or twice and then it gets real old, real fast. The sort of games that really make up the bread-and-butter of mtg are the ones that revolve around creatures and combat. And while stax specifically probably doesn't work, creatureless (or nearly creatureless) control looks reasonable with bolas or one of the bolas gods, or the blue dino, or maybe even vona. It's fun to find weird stuff like manaless dredge and 1-land belcher, but the game never would have become popular if that was what every game looked like. The core of what makes the game popular is still going to be present in brawl.
here are my feelings on this format:
I dont like it.
The major appeal of commander is getting to play my old cards, i cant do that here. There are a lot of walkers and legends that mechanically arent well explored during their runs in standard, while others can be downright broken.
I also feel that with the more limited card pool some strategies arent even viable, while others are mechanically weak. It also leads to having to stretch to fill roles and gaps in your build. On top of that monocolor hits an even greater disadvantage as strong cards are more spread in standard vs. The abundance across all colors in the entire history of magic
Oh, it also competes with edh and standard, creating a format that says... why am i not just playing this other format?
To me its a neat idea that could be fun, but will most likely end up like every other format and be forgotten in a month.
It also doesnt fix the obvious problem that is standard. It feels like a desperate attempt to bring the edh crowd out of their hovels and shanty towns and into standard, without understanding why that group tends to avoid standard or addressing declining involvement in the standard environment
The big draw for a lot of edh players isnt the commander so much as the complex interactions and the nonrotational nature of the format, combined with the slower nature of games and the social aspect. A 60 card commander format that rotates and is full of bad cards just to make the deck work isnt very appealing to long time commander players who have moved away from standard, but it may appeal to standard players who have quit
This sounds desperate. Standard is in shambles, Modern is doing great but for one reason or another they really don't want to depend on those players, now they're trying to get the Commander players to bail them out. Doubtful it's going to pan out.
The two main problems I see:
Standard card pool is very small. Shrinkinng the decks from 100 to 60 is an admission of this since at 100 everyone would be sporting the same arsenal for each color. Even then, people is going to find familiar patterns like Gishath being tier 1 with all the Ixalan block dinos, or everyone going for Sorcerer's amulet against abilities, etc. Novelty is going to wear off quickly after seeing the same cards on most decks.
It is dead obvious that Dominaria was designed and developed with this in mind, so now means there's an additional format along Standard which demands testing. Unless they double their development staff, now Standard is going to get even attention which means even more chances for something broken or dominating to slip through and less cards worth playing in the format now that there's another one format to satisfy. It's not as easy as giving up on Standard since the Spikes who buy the boxes for the mythic playsets ain't going to be exciting at picking this new format taylored to appease to the casuals.
I like how people complain about rotation, but two years ago I didn't have like half of my commander decks. I like building and using ne stuff or re using old stuff. So I don't think one should complain so much with this drawback
This sounds desperate. Standard is in shambles, Modern is doing great but for one reason or another they really don't want to depend on those players, now they're trying to get the Commander players to bail them out. Doubtful it's going to pan out.
The two main problems I see:
Standard card pool is very small. Shrinkinng the decks from 100 to 60 is an admission of this since at 100 everyone would be sporting the same arsenal for each color. Even then, people is going to find familiar patterns like Gishath being tier 1 with all the Ixalan block dinos, or everyone going for Sorcerer's amulet against abilities, etc. Novelty is going to wear off quickly after seeing the same cards on most decks.
It is dead obvious that Dominaria was designed and developed with this in mind, so now means there's an additional format along Standard which demands testing. Unless they double their development staff, now Standard is going to get even attention which means even more chances for something broken or dominating to slip through and less cards worth playing in the format now that there's another one format to satisfy. It's not as easy as giving up on Standard since the Spikes who buy the boxes for the mythic playsets ain't going to be exciting at picking this new format taylored to appease to the casuals.
I think you underestimate the size of standard. There are 1404 cards currently in standard, and another few hundred after dominaria drops. Sure, most mono-color control decks will look similar, a lot of commanders will be playing cards not seen in other decks, like pirates for brass or merfolk for kumena. There also aren't any no-brainer picks like sol ring, mana crypt, demo tutor, skullclamp, etc. which was homogenizing a lot of commander.
Spikes don't buy boxes trying to get mythic playsets. Spikes buy singles like a sane person.
I kinda doubt that this format requires much minding, as a casual format. Most of the bones they throw to commander will do nicely for brawl as well. Multiplayer will probably generally keep broken stuff in check, anything that's busted will be way more busted in standard with 4-ofs so problems will be caught in standard before they make it to brawl. As long as they aren't intending to make this a tournament format I don't think it really requires much extra effort at all.
I like how people complain about rotation, but two years ago I didn't have like half of my commander decks. I like building and using ne stuff or re using old stuff. So I don't think one should complain so much with this drawback
People like to think about their decks as being permanent. The reality is that nothing is permanent. I built my first deck planning to play it for a thousand years. In the end it lasted less than a year before I got bored and stopped playing it. Rotation makes people squeamish but in reality it's probably not much different than what they'd be doing anyway, it just gets rid of all the dumb auto-includes that have stagnated commander (to a certain extent).
This sounds desperate. Standard is in shambles, Modern is doing great but for one reason or another they really don't want to depend on those players, now they're trying to get the Commander players to bail them out. Doubtful it's going to pan out.
The two main problems I see:
Standard card pool is very small. Shrinkinng the decks from 100 to 60 is an admission of this since at 100 everyone would be sporting the same arsenal for each color. Even then, people is going to find familiar patterns like Gishath being tier 1 with all the Ixalan block dinos, or everyone going for Sorcerer's amulet against abilities, etc. Novelty is going to wear off quickly after seeing the same cards on most decks.
It is dead obvious that Dominaria was designed and developed with this in mind, so now means there's an additional format along Standard which demands testing. Unless they double their development staff, now Standard is going to get even attention which means even more chances for something broken or dominating to slip through and less cards worth playing in the format now that there's another one format to satisfy. It's not as easy as giving up on Standard since the Spikes who buy the boxes for the mythic playsets ain't going to be exciting at picking this new format taylored to appease to the casuals.
It's much more likely that they gave thumb up to an internal project after DOM made it better by giving lots of new choices than the other way round...
Well, is there anyone brewing or are people simply complaining?
I brewed and played with my bros (Kambal, Beckett, Kumena and Gideon of the Trials) and we had an extremelly boring 2 hour slog. Then we played a couple games 1v1 and actually had fun.
Standard cards aren't fit for multiplayer.
I brewed and played with my bros (Kambal, Beckett, Kumena and Gideon of the Trials) and we had an extremelly boring 2 hour slog.
Around these parts we call that a fast EDH game.
In seriousness, though, that is a potential concern. There are kind of 2 ways a game of commander ends: either the table kills one person at a time, or one person kill the whole table at once. The latter might be pretty tough in a format without huge bombs or combos. There are definitely some bombs, but not on the level of commander. Personally I'm kind of excited about that - seriously, screw expropriate - but if the table is too good at keeping itself balanced then the game might take a long time to go anywhere, depending on how likely the players are to start drawing blood.
Gideon is a weird one but I'd think kumena and beckett would be pushing for aggro pretty hard with evasive pirates and unblockable pumped up kumena, and kambal is presumably draining life all the time even without combat. So I'm kind of surprised you ended up in a stalemate for that long (I don't think 2 hours is absurd, but it is a bit long - I think my ideal game lasts about an hour and a half). Any insights into why you think that happened? I don't necessarily think restricted card pool is completely to blame - conspiracy worked fine and that has a much smaller card pool, and you can't stack the deck with rares either.
1) no one will even try it and it will die for lack of players
2) games will become too stalemate-y without commander's splashier plays to shake up the game
3) it will split the commander player base (this would be bad but I think it's unlikely)
4) the format will be too predictable with the limited number of commanders and strong cards
...
99) oh no I spent $50 on my deck and only got a year and a half worth of fun out of it
this format seems more or less like a "dumbed down" version. It's EDH but with no good mana rocks, removal, counterspells, combos etc. Only creatures here... The issue of entire color combinations potentially rotating out of a format is irksome.
Agreed. There aren't enough cards in the pool to really optimize a mono-colored deck; they're going to feel overly homogenous as people choose the same "best" cards in that color. At the same time, there isn't good enough mana-fixing to optimize multicolored decks. And having entire color combos lose support with rotation is just stupid.
I like how people complain about rotation, but two years ago I didn't have like half of my commander decks. I like building and using ne stuff or re using old stuff. So I don't think one should complain so much with this drawback
I also like building new decks - I do it all the time. But there's a difference between choosing to drop a deck and being forced to. As for re-using old stuff, well, it can't be too old in this format, because once it rotates out, it's worthless. So, yeah, the criticism is justified.
People like to think about their decks as being permanent. The reality is that nothing is permanent. I built my first deck planning to play it for a thousand years. In the end it lasted less than a year before I got bored and stopped playing it. Rotation makes people squeamish but in reality it's probably not much different than what they'd be doing anyway, it just gets rid of all the dumb auto-includes that have stagnated commander (to a certain extent).
Completely disagree. I build decks knowing most of them will be played for a while and then stripped apart. However, I buy cards expecting to be able to use them whenever I want. Rotation is an artificial forced-devaluation of something I spent money on. That is the complaint about rotation. Let's look at some current and upcoming Brawl commanders. Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca - It's tribal merfolk, but in Commander I get to play all of my favorite merfolk, while in Brawl, I'm restricted to a small cardpool despite owning other merfolk. These aren't staples/ format-stagnating auto-includes - these are ideal cards for a very specific deck. Muldrotha, the Gravetide - This could be more of a permanent-based good-stuff deck that reflects your fear of auto-includes, but it can also be so much more. It makes previously limited-only cards rather good - stuff like Seal of Doom and Lunar Force that aren't really good enough for other commanders. Unfortunately, Brawl's rotation will kill the bulk of these interactions. Cards like Mystic Remora are closer to staple status (though I've never run that particular card), but Muldrotha's spoiler actually prompted me to go out and buy a copy; couldn't do that with Brawl.
@GavinVerhey Any chance you could make Wastes legal in Brawl, for Hope of Ghirapur decks and Karn decks?
Replying to @Orohu
Given the number of people asking for it, some solution here is something I'm looking into. Check back after Dominaria has been out for a bit. #wotcstaff
Most elegant solution is to simply make Basic lands always legal in every format.
I think that a lot more excitement could have been generated if the card pool for the Brawl format combined recent Commander products + Standard. With this structure, R&D would not be required to maintain the skeleton of the Brawl format with new set releases - particularly noteworthy as rotation occurs. Freed from this potential shackling, new sets could be designed to primarily address "four - of" constructed formats (as usual), while tossing plants to Commander/Brawl.
Also, Brawl should be pushed as a tournament 1v1 format with the goal to pull "the competitive crowd" away from "EDH", giving cEDH a true home.
@GavinVerhey Any chance you could make Wastes legal in Brawl, for Hope of Ghirapur decks and Karn decks?
Replying to @Orohu
Given the number of people asking for it, some solution here is something I'm looking into. Check back after Dominaria has been out for a bit. #wotcstaff
Most elegant solution is to simply make Basic lands always legal in every format.
So Snow lands would start being desirable by Standard (and even Limited!) players for fringe use with things like Awakened Amalgam and Realms Uncharted?
Not that I think a bigger Awakened Amalgam will break the world, but if people are, even in theory, encouraged to seek out cards that haven’t been printed in a decade to maximize a standard deck ... that would be kinda silly. And in no way elegant.
So Snow lands would start being desirable by Standard (and even Limited!) players for fringe use with things like Awakened Amalgam and Realms Uncharted?
Not that I think a bigger Awakened Amalgam will break the world, but if people are, even in theory, encouraged to seek out cards that haven’t been printed in a decade to maximize a standard deck ... that would be kinda silly. And in no way elegant.
I had forgotten Awakened Amalgam.... but they could already run off color lands and non-basics to add to it's power, so I don't think it will be that big of an issue, personally. And Realms Uncharted is better used finding non-basics over basics.
I don’t think anything in the current standard would break Snow lands. But it is adding a constraint to their design space to have a world where 11 different basic lands are in play in standard, and not 5/6. And if they print something that makes it useful at all to add Snow lands to a Standard deck they run the risk of having that silly situation where players have to pursue over-a-decade-old cards to be able to optimize the by-design-current format. If they print something like Extraplanar Lens.. (people run Snow lands with that to make themselves able to help themselves while not helping the non Snow opponents).
Completely disagree. I build decks knowing most of them will be played for a while and then stripped apart. However, I buy cards expecting to be able to use them whenever I want. Rotation is an artificial forced-devaluation of something I spent money on. That is the complaint about rotation. Let's look at some current and upcoming Brawl commanders. Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca - It's tribal merfolk, but in Commander I get to play all of my favorite merfolk, while in Brawl, I'm restricted to a small cardpool despite owning other merfolk. These aren't staples/ format-stagnating auto-includes - these are ideal cards for a very specific deck. Muldrotha, the Gravetide - This could be more of a permanent-based good-stuff deck that reflects your fear of auto-includes, but it can also be so much more. It makes previously limited-only cards rather good - stuff like Seal of Doom and Lunar Force that aren't really good enough for other commanders. Unfortunately, Brawl's rotation will kill the bulk of these interactions. Cards like Mystic Remora are closer to staple status (though I've never run that particular card), but Muldrotha's spoiler actually prompted me to go out and buy a copy; couldn't do that with Brawl.
A huge point of the format is to limit the potential interactions. Sure, there are cool(ish) interactions like lunar force and muldrotha...but there's also all the same tedious crap that's existed forever like MoM + azami or DEN + palinchron or DEN + anything really or TnN or mike trike or...you get the idea. Even stuff that doesn't win immediately but just sucks to play against, like the guy that gets a mana crypt start with maelstrom wanderer and has 20 hasty power on board on turn 3.
If you want to play muldrotha + lunar force...that's what commander is for. That's why commander isn't going away. They just offering different things. Commander offers freedom. Brawl offers balance (hopefully).
I've tried to get my girlfriend into commander quite a bit, and she's never really liked it. Hated it, really. Because there's 2.5 decades worth of cards and she's only been playing for a few years, and only limited. That means it's impossible for a new player to keep track of everything that's going on, on top of all the complexity multiplayer already offers. There's always going to be something coming out of left field that she's never heard of before, or something on board that she forgot about because she's trying to keep up with the other ten cards she's never seen that have been played since then.
Commander is a great format for enfranchised players who have been playing for decades, but it's kind of an awful beginner format. My girlfriend is way more interested in brawl because she's actually played with every card in the format (she started playing limited in SOI). There aren't a ton of infinite combos that you have to watch out for. There aren't busted cards that will instantly win the game, and if there are they'll be few, far between, and a small enough list of newer cards that she'll actually be familiar with them.
I have seen it before, at my LGS, something about wizards trying it out before the announcement.
The problem is that standard cards are just so variant in power-level. You just be dumb and play the deck that allows you to play the best cards in standard and if you pick the wrong colour combo you will very quickly you are playing only terrible cards. Due to the limitations of the format you'll just have everyone playing the same (stupid midrange) cards.
If I am playing say the locust god.. my opponent plays the scarab god well I lose and there is nothing I can do to remove the scarab god from relevance in game. there are no cards in UR to deal with the scarab god. or Hazoret either or any of the other gods.
I have seen it before, at my LGS, something about wizards trying it out before the announcement.
The problem is that standard cards are just so variant in power-level. You just be dumb and play the deck that allows you to play the best cards in standard and if you pick the wrong colour combo you will very quickly you are playing only terrible cards. Due to the limitations of the format you'll just have everyone playing the same (stupid midrange) cards.
If I am playing say the locust god.. my opponent plays the scarab god well I lose and there is nothing I can do to remove the scarab god from relevance in game. there are no cards in UR to deal with the scarab god. or Hazoret either or any of the other gods.
Like, that is not even true for a UR deck. I mean Counterspells kill him, bounce spells delay him, Hour of Devastation nukes him.
Meanwhile in the 2016 US Presidential Election...
*rimshot*
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
True enough. I guess I was just worried about that when you consider you have a smaller card pool as well, inherent in Standard. (That said, I also think it's funny watching Commander players play four- or five-color decks with a bunch of cards costing MMM, which is fine, as long as you remember paying that colored cost effects its position on the curve. I do think Brawl will stop some of that, especially since Necropotence is not available.)
Boros's biggest problem is the dearth of good card draw, which is a problem throughout multiplayer formats, as well as formats with higher life totals. (If a midrange or control player can stabilize or a combo player can combo out, the aggro player is boned.)
On phasing:
One of the great things about EDH is the sheer varitey of things to build, from control to timmy ramp to midrange to storm to stax. Outside of control and midrange, I am not sure what variety of decks the standard cardpool can facilitate.
As someone entrenched in EDH, the transition would feel awkward, as this format seems more or less like a "dumbed down" version. It's EDH but with no good mana rocks, removal, counterspells, combos etc. Only creatures here.
The issue of entire color combinations potentially rotating out of a format is irksome.
I do think the collateral of more EDH like cards and more people interested in EDH is positive.
More ways to play Magic is always good.
I think the best thing to come out of this would be if it provided an Arena friendly "EDH lite" so that casual, multiplayer Magic would be possible on Arena.
EDH Decks
UWB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic's spring of life
RUG Animar, Soul of the Elements and friends... lots of them
WBG Karador king of two worlds (value and attrition)
WRKalemne's Angels
BRUG Yidris's Wild Party
UWBR Breya's Terrifying Tinker Toys
UBR The Pretender
You can't create a casual format, people find the way they want to play and share it with their friends, you don't show up and tell them "have fun this way". Planechase failed, Archenemy failed, Explorers failed. Sure some people actually like those, but they'll never have the appeal Commander does.
On the other hand all you need to popularize a competitive format out of nowhere is hold tournaments for it. Pauper went from 7 guys and a staff member as a bye to 150 people events in two months. If they wanted to sell Standard cards through Brawl, that's what they had to have done.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I dont like it.
The major appeal of commander is getting to play my old cards, i cant do that here. There are a lot of walkers and legends that mechanically arent well explored during their runs in standard, while others can be downright broken.
I also feel that with the more limited card pool some strategies arent even viable, while others are mechanically weak. It also leads to having to stretch to fill roles and gaps in your build. On top of that monocolor hits an even greater disadvantage as strong cards are more spread in standard vs. The abundance across all colors in the entire history of magic
Oh, it also competes with edh and standard, creating a format that says... why am i not just playing this other format?
To me its a neat idea that could be fun, but will most likely end up like every other format and be forgotten in a month.
It also doesnt fix the obvious problem that is standard. It feels like a desperate attempt to bring the edh crowd out of their hovels and shanty towns and into standard, without understanding why that group tends to avoid standard or addressing declining involvement in the standard environment
The big draw for a lot of edh players isnt the commander so much as the complex interactions and the nonrotational nature of the format, combined with the slower nature of games and the social aspect. A 60 card commander format that rotates and is full of bad cards just to make the deck work isnt very appealing to long time commander players who have moved away from standard, but it may appeal to standard players who have quit
The two main problems I see:
Spikes don't buy boxes trying to get mythic playsets. Spikes buy singles like a sane person.
I kinda doubt that this format requires much minding, as a casual format. Most of the bones they throw to commander will do nicely for brawl as well. Multiplayer will probably generally keep broken stuff in check, anything that's busted will be way more busted in standard with 4-ofs so problems will be caught in standard before they make it to brawl. As long as they aren't intending to make this a tournament format I don't think it really requires much extra effort at all. People like to think about their decks as being permanent. The reality is that nothing is permanent. I built my first deck planning to play it for a thousand years. In the end it lasted less than a year before I got bored and stopped playing it. Rotation makes people squeamish but in reality it's probably not much different than what they'd be doing anyway, it just gets rid of all the dumb auto-includes that have stagnated commander (to a certain extent).
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Standard cards aren't fit for multiplayer.
In seriousness, though, that is a potential concern. There are kind of 2 ways a game of commander ends: either the table kills one person at a time, or one person kill the whole table at once. The latter might be pretty tough in a format without huge bombs or combos. There are definitely some bombs, but not on the level of commander. Personally I'm kind of excited about that - seriously, screw expropriate - but if the table is too good at keeping itself balanced then the game might take a long time to go anywhere, depending on how likely the players are to start drawing blood.
Gideon is a weird one but I'd think kumena and beckett would be pushing for aggro pretty hard with evasive pirates and unblockable pumped up kumena, and kambal is presumably draining life all the time even without combat. So I'm kind of surprised you ended up in a stalemate for that long (I don't think 2 hours is absurd, but it is a bit long - I think my ideal game lasts about an hour and a half). Any insights into why you think that happened? I don't necessarily think restricted card pool is completely to blame - conspiracy worked fine and that has a much smaller card pool, and you can't stack the deck with rares either.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
bringing in 'commander' rules with a legendary (or planeswalker) also seems pretty cool.
but mostly I think singleton would have been fine. call it Stan-Lander or something.
let's see how it pans out. on paper it looks fun. in reality nobody might play it.
In order of concerns:
1) no one will even try it and it will die for lack of players
2) games will become too stalemate-y without commander's splashier plays to shake up the game
3) it will split the commander player base (this would be bad but I think it's unlikely)
4) the format will be too predictable with the limited number of commanders and strong cards
...
99) oh no I spent $50 on my deck and only got a year and a half worth of fun out of it
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I also like building new decks - I do it all the time. But there's a difference between choosing to drop a deck and being forced to. As for re-using old stuff, well, it can't be too old in this format, because once it rotates out, it's worthless. So, yeah, the criticism is justified.
Completely disagree. I build decks knowing most of them will be played for a while and then stripped apart. However, I buy cards expecting to be able to use them whenever I want. Rotation is an artificial forced-devaluation of something I spent money on. That is the complaint about rotation. Let's look at some current and upcoming Brawl commanders.
Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca - It's tribal merfolk, but in Commander I get to play all of my favorite merfolk, while in Brawl, I'm restricted to a small cardpool despite owning other merfolk. These aren't staples/ format-stagnating auto-includes - these are ideal cards for a very specific deck.
Muldrotha, the Gravetide - This could be more of a permanent-based good-stuff deck that reflects your fear of auto-includes, but it can also be so much more. It makes previously limited-only cards rather good - stuff like Seal of Doom and Lunar Force that aren't really good enough for other commanders. Unfortunately, Brawl's rotation will kill the bulk of these interactions. Cards like Mystic Remora are closer to staple status (though I've never run that particular card), but Muldrotha's spoiler actually prompted me to go out and buy a copy; couldn't do that with Brawl.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
MTGSalvation tags
EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
https://twitter.com/GavinVerhey/status/977590104637063173
Most elegant solution is to simply make Basic lands always legal in every format.
Also, Brawl should be pushed as a tournament 1v1 format with the goal to pull "the competitive crowd" away from "EDH", giving cEDH a true home.
So Snow lands would start being desirable by Standard (and even Limited!) players for fringe use with things like Awakened Amalgam and Realms Uncharted?
Not that I think a bigger Awakened Amalgam will break the world, but if people are, even in theory, encouraged to seek out cards that haven’t been printed in a decade to maximize a standard deck ... that would be kinda silly. And in no way elegant.
I had forgotten Awakened Amalgam.... but they could already run off color lands and non-basics to add to it's power, so I don't think it will be that big of an issue, personally. And Realms Uncharted is better used finding non-basics over basics.
If you want to play muldrotha + lunar force...that's what commander is for. That's why commander isn't going away. They just offering different things. Commander offers freedom. Brawl offers balance (hopefully).
I've tried to get my girlfriend into commander quite a bit, and she's never really liked it. Hated it, really. Because there's 2.5 decades worth of cards and she's only been playing for a few years, and only limited. That means it's impossible for a new player to keep track of everything that's going on, on top of all the complexity multiplayer already offers. There's always going to be something coming out of left field that she's never heard of before, or something on board that she forgot about because she's trying to keep up with the other ten cards she's never seen that have been played since then.
Commander is a great format for enfranchised players who have been playing for decades, but it's kind of an awful beginner format. My girlfriend is way more interested in brawl because she's actually played with every card in the format (she started playing limited in SOI). There aren't a ton of infinite combos that you have to watch out for. There aren't busted cards that will instantly win the game, and if there are they'll be few, far between, and a small enough list of newer cards that she'll actually be familiar with them.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Counterspell?
Like, that is not even true for a UR deck. I mean Counterspells kill him, bounce spells delay him, Hour of Devastation nukes him.
Heck you could Hijack the Scarab God, attack with him, then Fling or Makeshift Munitions him.